Braving the Past

Chapter 58: The Black Lake

They had found it.

Forty-five minutes into the one hour the gillyweed gave them, they had found the statue of the snake.

Leading up to this moment, they hadn't seen a single merperson. They had perhaps thought it luck after fighting past the grindylows, but now it was clear. The merpeople had simply lain in wait. Watching. Preparing. And now, they struck as one. They came from all directions, pouring out of the tall seaweed that had hidden them from view.

Luna was already moving closer to the statue while Blaise and Theo had jumped straight into action fending off the merpeople at the girls' backs. Ginny sent a spell at a merperson charging her with its spear, barely deflecting it across the water in time. Its tip grazed her collarbone as it was thrown to the side. She hissed at the sting it left behind.

Blaise let out a muffled cry behind her, and Ginny turned to see blood leeching from his side. She turned herself his way, heart constricting, but was quickly called away.

"Ginny!" Luna cried. "Nothing's working, I can't destroy it!"

Luna was already within arms reach of the statue, which rested quietly amid the chaos. Ginny caught sight of a spell rebounding off the stone, not a single scratch on the surface.

"Ginny, go!" Blaise yelled through the water, blasting the closest merperson away. He was quickly overcome by another in its place. "Get it done!"

Her heart and her gut warring, Ginny cursed and swept her arms back to dive down toward the statue. She could feel her blood pumping beneath her skin from the sudden stress. Looking back, she saw that not a single merperson had followed them down, as if some invisible force kept them distanced from the statue.

Or as if they could sense what lay in wait beneath the stone.

"What do we do?" Luna asked, distraught.

Ginny's eyes roved around the statue. Even in the dark water, its scales were incredibly detailed and lifelike. The majority of the python's body was curled underneath itself, only the head rearing up, jaws open wide as if Nagini had fought the form she'd been forced into.

Ignoring the swirls and disturbances in the water above them, the girls honed in on the statue of Nagini. They circled her, hands and eyes searching. Finding nothing. Nothing but a single idea that caused a pit to form in Ginny's stomach.

Luna tried to cast fiendfyre. It fizzled out in the water.

Ginny hated the taste of the fear on her tongue.

Theo was thrown to the sandy bottom of the lake a distance away from them, hands not strong enough to keep the length of a trident from pressing down on his neck.

No. No.

"I-" Ginny choked on the words. "I think we need to release her. Transfigure her back into what she was."

Luna looked into her eyes, her own wide. Her mouth opened, then closed. Her blonde hair floated around her as she took in the fight raging above them.

"Okay," she said, muffled voice shaking.

They waited only a beat before Ginny lifted her wand and uttered the spell.

Light enveloped the stone until it began to chip and peel away, the smooth body jolting awkwardly as it gained movement once again. The head was the last to be released. Nagini's jaws snapped closed over the water, then her head swiveled, slitted eyes taking in the situation she suddenly found herself in.

Ginny had never considered herself the sort to hesitate - outside of interacting with Harry in her younger years. She prided herself in her boldness, having grown up with six older brothers to force strength into her. But now, looking at this python that must be longer than she was tall, body as thick as her head, Ginny felt herself freezing.